Peter Martin advises us of a new initiative in the public scrutiny of Australian politics - OpenAustralia.org. The site places Hansard on line with a searchable database, tailored to scrutiny (with the ability to comment) of individual members. It’s a volunteer run site, riffing off the UK site TheyWorkForYou. It’ll be interesting to see how useful it proves - one potential drawback is the much stronger levels of party discipline in the Australian House of Reps (and unfortunately, the site doesn’t seem to focus on the Senate, which is going to be the site of a lot of legislative log-rolling, as tigtog comments at Hoyden in her post providing an overview of the new Senators who take office on July 1). No doubt it will be useful for grabbing quotes from Question Time, but a lot of the really interesting stuff that affects citizens that goes on in Parliament takes place in Senate committees.
Elsewhere: More from Public Polity and Andrew Bartlett.
The grammar nazi in me wants to point out that you mean ‘effect’.
‘Affect’ is to do with emotions, hence it being the root of ‘affection’.
Sorry, its a pet peeve, I can’t help it
It’s a bit more complex than that!
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/affect.html
I can’t help but think that greater exposure to parliament will have the effect of putting everybody off. The showing of snippets of Question Time last night on the ABC was just horrifying. Hockey and Madame Mesmer jumping up and down excitedly about the possibility of asking a question of the PM about clarifying a small remark he made in japan on some subject that was ruled out of order but they talked for two days about anyway. Labor members muttering about devil babies and denying they said it, then an endless argument about what shape of committee could be used to discuss it. Ironbar Tuckey calling the treasurer a peanut so he could get thrown out (probably needed help from security to get to the dunny because he forgot where it was again). Arguments over stuff deleted from Hansard that was/wasn’t said that had Albanese all excited. We voted for all these numbnuts? Next time they shut the door, don’t f*cking open it again, ever.
I think its great to have a single easy to use place to find out this sort of information. Voting history too would be useful though I didn’t see it there. I did like the feature to be able emailed when a chosen MP speaks in parliament.
The more things which encourage members of parliament to represent their electorate rather than the party or faction they belong to, the better.
Pfft. I told you guys about this, like nearly 2 months ago: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/03/saturday-salon-labour-day-edition/#comment-462617
Sorry, Brett! I normally don’t read the threads over the weekend.
Having in the past, trawled through years of Hansards in the name of hitorical research (1946-49) (1941-1945).
1. Its pretty damn dull.
2. The correct figures/stats etc quoted in Hansard are not necessarily those cited in either House. Politicians, before TV, used to just say anything, then go and look the right figures, %s, stats etc up later and insert.One wonders if its still the same.
3. I gather they can change entries if they think they’ve been misrepresenred or they decide the Hansard recorder got it wrong.
So, beware. You may not be getting the whole truth.
Paul - Perhaps if politicians (esp backbenchers) thought that the people in their electorate would actually read some of what they say in parliament that they would think about what they are going say a bit more. Although its not at this point yet, imagine a service that dropped into people’s email boxes once a week a summary of the topics that your local MP talked about (with links to the actual content) and how they voted on various issues.
I think its a great way to get people connected more with the parliament and what happens there (and to be more educated when it comes to voting).
“Sorry, Brett! I normally don’t read the threads over the weekend.”
Why? Do you consider them of less value Kim? Surely not.
Just a reminder that Aussie politicans rarely vote based on their personal opinions but on party lines. It’s time that the Labor party reformed their rules allowing members to cross the floor if they feel strongly about a particular issue. The Liberal Party allows their members to cross the floor although that option is rarely used.
Initiatives like this should be welcomed by everyone who thinks greater transparency can improve our democracy. One use I foresee will be in contrasting the spin politicians put out with their actual statements in Parliament. Another use will be giving the lie to the misrepresentation of the positions of other politicians by easier reference to the actual record. The ability to subscribe to searches by MP and keyword is a great feature. I realy hope the venture succeeds and leads to more virtual eyes scrutinising our Federal MPs.
I think that would be a really important reform - otherwise we might as well not list people’s names on the voting ballots, just the party they represent instead. In practice I don’t think there is any way to force parties to have that flexibility though.
Elsewhere: More from Public Polity and Andrew Bartlett.
Not at all, nasking. I just reserve the weekend for a life away from the intertubes on the whole. Not a value judgment, just a choice.
I dunno about that link, Kim. I know its a uni link, but it has no citations.
Wikipedia agrees it generally relates to emotions and psychology, and is confused with ‘effect’ when used as a noun.
Wikipedia definition
From what I can gather, using ‘affect’ to mean effecting a change is an American usage? That Uni website you cited is American too, so it seems this makes sense. They murder a lot of words
But i’m going off topic. It’s not a big deal
Well, I think it’s an issue on which people of good will can agree to disagree, Stephen!
I visited the site and found it useful. Thanks for the link.
BTW, Stephen Lloyd. with all due respects, I believe you are in error.
The interesting stuff ‘affects’ the citizens. It has an effect on them but does not effect them. The interesting stuff changes, influences or modifies the citizens. It does not ‘effect’ them because it does not ‘create’ or ‘produce’ them in the way that powerful poisons effect death or successful revolutions effect changes of government.
Back to the drawing board.
And then cites Wikipedia. That’s not a citation, the Oxford English Dictionary is a citation.
I’ve cut and pasted the citation in full from the OED online on a free page (it was way too long to post in full here). I won’t leave it up for more than a few days, but here is the primary meaning according to those prestigious lexicographers:
edited to add: I especially draw your attention to meaning 2b.
P.S. Affect is also the root word of “affectation” which is all about appearance and not about emotions at all. As Kim said, it’s just not that simple.
As referred to by Paul in #7 “Hansard recorder got it wrong. So, beware. You may not be getting the whole truth.”
Some friends of mine were giving expert advice to a parliamentary inquiry and got entangled in the ego of a Coalition member. There was a series of rather sharp comments resulting in the pollie getting ‘pwned’ [is that the correct expression?] rather badly on 2 occasions. Some months later the transcript came out minus the relevant exchanges.
So one of the participants asked the simple question..”why?”
Complicated answer came back to be met with “Not good enough, get them included’.
I believe they eventually were.
“Not at all, nasking. I just reserve the weekend for a life away from the intertubes on the whole.”
Lucky some of us read the threads on the weekends Kim or we would’ve missed out on contributing early to that useful media-related thread…;)
HD: “entangled in the ego of a … member”
Thank you for that word-picture, trés utile. Checking the provenence of the “entangled ego” meme, google reveals it embedded in traditions as rich and diverse as the yogic, classical western political and philosophical thought, freud, and, yes, even po-mo.
Thus it’s not surprising that, as often when a really good idea is considered, Yeats was onto it long ago: (warning: Canon alert)
From (1919) The Wild Swans at Coole: Ego Dominus Tuus
“That is our modern hope and by its light
We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind
And lost the old nonchalance of the hand;
Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush
We are but critics, or but half create,
Timid, entangled, empty and abashed
Lacking the countenance of our friends.”
HD’s egoistical observation reminds me it cuts both ways, and that, (a tad surprisingly given the media ravenous appetite for sensational trivia), not all that our pollies utter in public is recorded.
‘Frinstance, at the Narangba community cabinet, one lesser front bencher vented his frustration re: constant haranguement by commentators who weren’t really interested in actually coming to grips with extant problems, rather more “intoxicated with their own expertise”. As I passed by his tent I complemented him on the turn of phrase , at which point his (presumed) press minder said “yeh that was good, where’d you get it from?”
Honestly, what’s the point of them struggling to develop class acts if all they get for their trouble is snark, left right and centre? Not that we want wall to wall Goughs, or shudder, Gareths.
Lest I be accused of paying scant attention to thread topicality, I offer the observation that:
For those really interested in keeping track of what our pollies say, the google alert service will email them, if asked nicely, whatever it sees their target uttering, from across its news, web and blog databases. Which is pretty much everything published, included, in a limited fashion, from within proprietal academic mutterings aka teh journals.
Now if you really wanted to expose your member to convenient web scrutiny, you can set up a MyMember.blogspot.com page, and have google alerts email his/her utterences directly to that blog, which thus writes itself. Use “Inverted Commas” for your alert term, otherwise you will get posts about “inverted” and “commas” as well.
openaustralia.com seems to use the same engine as a uk site theyworkforyou.com.
There is also a similar US site called opencongress.org that uses different technology to do the same thing. There are also some similar sites to opencongress that are hosted by a group called The Sunlight Foundation.